quotations about words
Such simple words! But words are mighty things;
They cast us down, or lift us up to rest;
They charm and strengthen, till our angel sings
The last of all the life-songs, and the best.
SARAH DOUDNEY
Some Words
The word was -- civilization!
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
Word and picture are correlatives which are continually in quest of each other, as is sufficiently evident in the case of metaphors and similes. So from all time what was said or sung inwardly to the ear had to be presented equally to the eye. And so in childish days we see word and picture in continual balance; in the book of the law and in the way of salvation, in the Bible and in the spelling-book. When something was spoken which could not be pictured, and something pictured which could not be spoken, all went well; but mistakes were often made, and a word was used instead of a picture; and thence arose those monsters of symbolical mysticism, which are doubly an evil.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
All words are pegs to hang ideas on.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Our words are always formative ... what we think and constantly affirm becomes our reality.
BARBARA WALSH
"Choosing our words wisely for encouragement", Deming Headlight, January 28, 2016
The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief.
FRANK HERBERT
Heretics of Dune
The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
We allow words to obscure the interpretation of the deeper meaning.
STEPHEN YOUNG
preface, Micro Messaging: Why Great Leadership is Beyond Words
What a children's earliest words are also depends on the age at which they start talking -- a late talker who is already mobile will learn words for the toys and objects that they find around them, while early talkers may learn more conversational words, for example hello, bye bye, or thank you.
ELENA LIEVEN & CAROLINE ROWLAND
"Should children understand at least 25 words by the time they are 2-years-old?", The Independent, January 14, 2016
Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Philosophy
A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Confusion of Feelings or Confusion
Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb! for I suppose he was dumb at the Creation, and must go round an entire circle in order to return to that blessed state.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
American Note-Books, April 1841
Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full.
HORACE
Ars Poetica
The sharpest sword is a word spoken in wrath.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
The Gospel of Buddha
Words never can express the whole that we feel: they give but an outline.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
You take many words to say simple things.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Autumn Garden
Oaths are but words, and words but wind.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
introduction, The Left Hand of Darkness
What a pity it is that there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together; and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome and puzzling as choosing a ribbon ... or a husband.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
Guesses at Truth